Day 14 - Teaching Gratitude

Tonight was rough.  I know it's a true rough night when Dear Husband and I are maxed out.

It started off fun enough.  We got home from work, school, and daycare.  DH got his workout in and Little Man and Miss and I got to watch Ellen for almost the entire show.  Then we decided to go out to dinner.  Woohoo!

Then things turned for the worse.  We should have cut our losses.

Little Man apparently thought going out to dinner was a tragedy and was whining.  I even said he could get dessert and he whined.  SERIOUSLY?  I just said we are going out to dinner and you get dessert there and you are whining?  I was losing my cool.

So we turned the attitude around a bit and headed out.  The night was looking to end up well after all.

Then things turned around again.

A long wait to order plus cold food when it finally came led to ants-in-the-pants for all.  The kids weren't horrible but had a general rude attitude about them.  After we were in the truck and no thank you had been uttered and they were whining about something else, I lost it.  DH and I concluded our kids were a bit spoiled.  And acted ungrateful.

Now, granted, we weren't in the best frames of mind.  And we have very high expectations of our kids.  And they are 3 and 5, which means they are very egocentric.  I know all this, but how do we start teaching them the lessons now so they don't turn into spoiled, ungrateful teenagers??

DH and I concluded chores were in order.  Now, I've tried a chore chart.  I don't remember to put stickers up or whatever plus I don't want to reward the kids for helping out around the house unless it's above and beyond their regular chores.  But I need some way to track who has what chore.  And how often.

So here are the things to figure out:

1.  What chores are age-appropriate?

2.  How do I keep track of who does what?

3.  How often do they need to do them?

4.  How else can we teach gratitude?

I found a couple websites for the types of chores toddlers/preschoolers can do:

http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/10/toddler-chores.html

http://familyshare.com/10-chore-ideas-for-your-toddler?Itemid=631#.UWTWkHB0GBE

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/chores-for-children

I think the last link is the one I'm most excited about.  It has some real chores.  I'm sorry - but "brushing teeth" is not a chore.

So I'm going to start there.  Tomorrow, we'll sit down and figure out some chores around the house the divy them up for week one.

Any other ideas on how to teach gratitude?

Cheers,
Megs